Central Park, standing at the edge of Seacombe and Egremont on the one side, with Liscard on the other, is a key public asset.

Cllr Adrian Jones & Mrs Di Ledder met Council Officers, who came up with remedies at a meeting this morning.

When the Tory/LibDem collaboration, in control of Wirral until last May, sought the reduction of some 1100+ council jobs our Central Park Ranger, who left early under one of the schemes of ‘encouragement’ to go, was among them. He was popular and dedicated, well known for working far beyond the call of ordinary duty; we all wished him well for his early retirement, but we certainly miss him.

The public were left with the impression that the deletion of such posts would occur only if they did not adversely affect front line services. But were people under the care of Social Services in Central Park not ‘front line’? Following the deletion of our Ranger’s post they found themselves without organised means to open the buildings they were using, in the morning, or to secure them afterwards, or even to have the lavatories cleaned.

This picture of Mrs Di Ledder was taken in the Park, with Cllr John Salter, when the improvements to the children's playground were being done.

The attractive Walled Garden was no longer open to the public unless the volunteers, or their carers, or Social Services staff, found ways to get it done. And with the retirement of our Ranger it was also closed to the public and to visitors on weekends. Not exactly good news for the ‘Leisure Peninsula’?

With no Council arrangements put in place for the lavatories to be cleaned that, too, fell by default to Social Services Staff and volunteers. Whoever else felt it was acceptable, it was not acceptable to your Seacombe Labour Councillors.

“What”, readers might ask, “was the rationale for not making arrangements for the buildings and the Walled Garden to be unlocked and secured, and for the lavatories to be cleaned?” That would be for the previous administration to explain. Your Labour Councillors are just getting on with the business of having it put right.

Happier times are back again

Meanwhile, the privatisation shadow has been lifted and our Parks have returned happily to public maintenance, with our professional officers able once more to arrange for the buildings to be opened for the volunteers and Social Services Staff to work unhindered; for the lavatories to be cleaned, and for our Walled Garden to be re-opened to the residents of Wirral who, by the way, own it.

We will not publicly name Council Officers, not even in a ‘good news’ story such as this, but with great pleasure we can report our sincere thanks to them for the professional manner in which they were able to put remedies in place at a meeting in the Town Hall this morning. No such thanks would be complete without recognising the wealth of advice given by Mrs Di Ledder, who chairs the Central Park Partnership.

In a spectacular collapse of unity (not that its ‘unity’ was ever all that strong) the Tory-led Coalition with the LibDems seems today to be in deep crisis. Is Cameron now desperate to placate the Right Wing of the Tory Party? By advocating the interests of the City of London as a key part of his theme he at least appears to be ‘on line’ with the bankers.

Err ….

Wasn’t it the millionaire bankers whose activities caused the world economic crash in the first place?

Aren’t there rather a lot of millionaires in Cameron’s Tory-led cabinet?

Doesn’t the Tory Party get rather a lot of funding from that sort of ‘club’?

And haven’t the bankers and financiers been investing UK industrial profits in the low-wage economies of the far east for decades, ever since the British de-industrialisation and export of formerly UK jobs during the previous Tory governments – with devastating effects on areas like Seacombe where manufaturing industry has suffered so much?

And what are the press saying about it? Not much unanimity there, nor comfort for the Tory-led coalition – as today’s headlines show.

"Yes Cameron got it right" screams the The Mail on Sunday

"Oh no he didn't - It's a spectacular failure" quotes the (perhaps rather more up-market) 'Independent'.

Meanwhile this page 6 story needs no comment to show how prone some Tory MPs are to shooting their party in its Right foot.

There may well be groans of dismay all over the country from those Tory Party supporters who turn to the ‘Mail’ for a bit of a lift. This story naming a British Tory MP, and the events related, with a picture of him with David Cameron as well, may not do much to persuade the Germans and French that all is as sweet as it may have seemed when Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath took us into the EEC (or EU as it now is) in 1973.

Anyone who can read on as far as pages 12 and 13 of the ‘Mail on Sunday’ will then find a strident lampoon of LibDem leader Nick Clegg which screams “Humiliation of Nick Clegg” with a photo of the poor chap looking rather sad and the comment “Nick Clegg is facing growing LibDem dissent.” Not much comfort for the Tories in that, though. Right next to it is another article ‘Brooding Europhile Clarke to confront Cameron tomorrow”. It seems that one-time Tory leadership hopeful Ken Clarke is set for “… a potentially explosive meeting with David Cameron tomorrow.”

Oh dear, we always knew the LibDem/Tory marriage could not be a happy one.

But will it end in divorce and a general election? Probably not; the Lib Dems could just walk away leaving Labour to try to form a minority administration; or they could ask for a coalition with Labour instead. But it’s unlikely they would want a general election even if the law (as they helped the Tories to change it) would now precipitate a general election – after all the poor old LibDems would probably be wiped out, and they’d hardly want that!

Following on from earlier raids on drugs dealing and distribution on Wirral the raids came nearer home in the past few days.

Within the East Wallasey Neighbourhood (mainly Liscard, Seacombe and New Brighton) 15 addresses were raided in a well organised intelligence-led ‘swoop. We understand this came close on the heels of earlier arrests in Birkenhead, a week ago, following on from months of evidence gathering.

Nowhere to hide?

In all, we understand many dozens of targets were identified. Some have been charged and others are awaiting charge. The police are delighted that this major success will have a positive impact on the whole area. However, arresting the key offenders is not the whole story. With the information revealed the ‘Drug Action Team’ are now able to orchestrate follow-up work to fill the needs of addicts following the arrests of so many ‘dealers’.

Young lives are ruined by the pushers and dealers.

Drug dealers may make a mint for a while, but in the end they get caught – after creating trails of badly damaged addicts, sucked into their sordid ‘businesses’.

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